AMONG the mononymous household figures immortalised in bronze on Parliament Square —Disraeli, Churchill, Gandhi— is one Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby and three-time Prime Minister.
In a country house 200 miles away resides another Edward Stanley, the present Lord Derby, landowner and scuba-diver. Of the 19 Earls of Derby since 1485, nine of them have been called Edward. The 1st was King of Mann and Henry VII’s stepfather and the 7th was with Charles II at the Battle of Worcester. The 12th founded the Derby and the 13th patronised Edward Lear, who wrote The Owl and the Pussycat for his children.
Then, the politicians: the 14th Earl’s triple premiership, the 15th’s turn as Foreign Secretary. The 16th was governor-general of Canada, the 17th Secretary of State for War in the First World War.
Lord Derby, a former Grenadier Guard, grew up the son of a third son, never expecting to inherit a title: ‘Early on, I worked out that I wasn’t intending to be Prime Minister,​ crown Henry VII or employ Shakespeare.’ He is part of a curious group of British figureheads, the lives of whose ancestors are still taught in schools. Each has found their own way in the world, burdened (or not) by history.
Denne historien er fra April 15, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra April 15, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
